商业往事丨第87话：卖拖把翻转命运

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卖拖把翻转命运

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（英文文章在中文文章之后）

 

 

也许你看过詹妮佛 · 劳伦斯主演的 2015 年电影《乔伊的奋斗》。它基于乔伊‧曼加诺的真实故事，她是一位创建自己商业帝国的女人。虽然这部电影增加了一些场景的戏剧性效果，并结合了几个角色到同一个人，但曼加诺开创造她的事业的真实故事与电影情节是几乎一样的。

 

乔伊‧曼加诺1956年出生于纽约布鲁克林，在纽约州亨廷顿的长岛长大。曼加诺1978年毕业于佩斯大学，获得工商管理学位。毕业后，在她的职业生涯起飞成为一名企业家之前，曼加诺担任过女服务员，正如电影中描述的那样，她还是一名航空公司订票服务员。

在早年的时候，曼加诺就喜欢发明东西，让生活更便利。十几岁时，当她在一家动物医院工作时，为狗和猫发明了一种颜色鲜艳的项圈，使它们在夜间更容易被汽车看到。但她从未申请过这方面的专利。（一年后，Hartz生产了类似的产品在市场销售）

 

曼加诺后来因发明了一把自动拖把而成名。当时，曼加诺正为照顾三个孩子而苦恼，对她来说拖地是件苦差事。曼加诺的创造天性激励了她，想办法来解决这个问题。她花了几年时间开发拖把，一种能减少拖地地板令人产生沮丧感觉的产品。她称它为「神奇拖把」，这支搭配耐用又容易拧干水分。

 

1990年，曼加诺制作了一个产品原型，并制作了100个神奇拖把样本。包括开发过程，整个费用将近10万美元。她耗尽了积蓄，还不得不向亲戚借一些钱。

 

曼加诺花了一些广告和大量的实地拜访，在第一年就卖出了几千只拖把。她的孩子帮她填写订单，但是赚到的钱并不多。这个是水温，只是让她在市场上站稳了脚跟。她知道她的奇迹拖把有市场潜力。所以，曼加诺决定把她的神奇拖把带到一个新的阶段。

 

曼加诺决定，下一个步是到家庭电视购物网QVC去推销产品。1992年，曼加诺将她的神奇拖把介绍为QVC高管。她说服他们给她一个机会，让她在电视上推广她的神奇拖把。然而，在电视上展示她拖把的人，并不熟悉拖把的操作，在展示拖把时做得很糟糕。所以销售成绩很不理想。但曼加诺相信，由她来介绍神奇拖把，可以有更好的销售成绩。

 

那些看过电影《乔伊的奋斗》的人，可能还记得詹妮佛‧劳伦斯扮演的拖把发明者试图说服QVC的负责人，让她展示她的拖把的关键场景；她问「谁给你看拖把的？」「谁卖给你的？」「谁教你如何使用它？」她的坚持得到了回报，因为他们同意让她介绍她的拖把，而不是一个专业的产品演示者来介绍产品。

 

但那是曼加诺第一次在电视上露面，她经历了一些舞台上怯场了。所以顾客不会打电话来买拖把的。直到，然后她最好的朋友罗尼打电话到现场来，问她如何使用这个神奇拖把。这下子，曼加诺变得非常自信，并能够清楚的解释拖把的操作和好处。之后陆续有电话打进来。QVC在不到半小时的时间内售出了超过一万八千支拖把。但这仅仅是神奇莫普和曼加诺的第一步。她最终卖出了数百万支神奇拖把。自从第一次成功之后，她又创造了许多其他产品，如Rolykit(可以卷起来节省空间的小物品储物箱)、可以迭起来的衣架和易于储放零件的小盒。

曼加诺在2017年的自传《创造欢乐》中回忆了这次经历。「我就像其他人一样。我是妈妈，我要工作，我有房子要打扫，有杂物要整理。我们都有类似的需求，我想办法解决这些问题。」

 

随后，曼加诺于1999年以将她的公司「天才设计」出售给了家庭购物网络(未披露的价格)。在曼加诺出售她的公司之前，她拥有了100多项专利，其中包括HSN最畅销的产品——可堆栈的衣架。在曼加诺的25年期间，她的公司每年能够带来超过1.5亿美元的收入。据估计，她在此期间已经赚了大约30亿美元。

 

对大多数企业家来说，成功从来都是得之不易。对他们中的大多数人来说，成功都是在艰难的过程之后才获得的。当然，在两个小时的电影中，不可能真正展现曼加诺成功道路上的所碰到的困难。电影《乔伊的奋斗》只是让我们领略了曼加诺在创立公司时碰到的一些困难。

 

从曼加诺的成功中，有一件事是让我想点出的；那就是，如果你能够把自己当作产品消费者，那么要将产品卖给他人就容易得多了。曼加诺之所以能够说服人们购买她的产品，是因为她是她所销售的产品的用户，而不仅仅是一个销售人员。因此，她能够与客户连结，消费者也能与她联系。因此，他们信任她，并愿意购买她的产品。当然，她也是她的产品的发明者，这说明她销售它。

 

当然，有很多产品过于复杂，没有办法一个人发明。然而，如果可能，您应该尝试成为你尝试销售的产品的用户。作为使用者，你最好知道如何向他人解释你的产品。你会了解你的产品的优点和缺点。了解产品的缺点，会让你理解的客户，因为你也是一个使用者。自己使用自己销售的产品，也可以让你提出改进产品的建议。如果你能够解决与产品使用相关的实际问题，你的产品将在市场上具有优势。所以，不要只是尝试销售你的产品。也尝试成为你的产品的用户。但是，如果这不可行，至少尽量的了解客户如何使用你的产品，以及他们遇到的任何困难。只有这样，你才能自信地销售你的产品。

 

 

 

 

 

Showing Empathy is the Best Strategy for Selling Products

 

 

Perhaps you have seen the 2015 movie “Joy” starring Jennifer Lawrence. It is based on the true story of Joy Mangano, a woman who created her own business empire. Although the movie added some scenes for dramatic effect and combined several roles into the same character, the actual story of how Mangano created her business is pretty similar.    

 

Joy Mangano was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1956, and raised in Huntington, New York on Long Island. Mangano graduated from Pace University with a degree in business administration in 1978. Following school, Mangano worked as a waitress and, as depicted in the movie, an airline reservations specialist, before her career as an entrepreneur took off.

 

Magano liked to invent things to make life easier from an early age. While working at an animal hospital as a teenager, she invented a brightly-colored flea collar for dogs and cats that would make them more visible to cars at night. But she never applied for a patent on the idea. (Hartz put a similar product on the market a year later) 

 

Mangano became known as an inventor due to her invention of a self-wringing mop. At that time, Mangano was struggling with taking care of three kids, and mopping the floor was a chore. Mangano’s inventive nature inspired her to try to solve this problem. She spent a couple of years developing a product that would make mopping floors easier, or at least less frustrating. She called it the Miracle Mop, which paired good durability with easy wringing.

 

In 1990, Mangano created a prototype and made 100 samples of her Miracle Mop. The cost was almost $100,000, including the development process. She depleted her savings and had to borrow some money from relatives.

 

Mangano sold a few thousand mops in the first year with a little advertising and a lot of knocking on doors. Her children helped her fill the orders. She made little money, but she gained a small foothold in the market. This allowed her to test the waters, and let her know that her Miracle Mop had market potential. So, at that point, Mangano decided to take her Miracle Mop to the next level.   

 

Mangano decided that the next level was QVC, the home-shopping TV network. Mangano promoted her Miracle Mop to QVC executives in 1992.  She convinced them to give her mop a chance on TV. However, the person who demonstrated her mop was not familiar with its operation and did a poor job of presenting it. So sales were poor. But Mangano believed that introducing the mop herself would move more mops. 

 

Those who have seen the movie “Joy” may recall a pivotal scene in which the inventor of the mop, played by Jennifer Lawrence, tries to persuade the head of QVC to let her demonstrate her mop. "Who showed you the mop?" she asks. "Who sold it to you? Who taught you how to use it?" And her insistence paid off, as he agreed to let her introduce her mop rather than a professional product presenter.

 

But that was the first appearance for Mangano on TV, and she experienced some stage fright. So customers weren’t calling in to buy the mop. But then her best friend Ronnie called in during the live presentation and asked how to use the mop. Then Mangano became more confident and was able to explain the mop’s operation and benefits. Then the calls started to come in. And QVC sold more than 18,000 mops in less than a half hour. But that was just the beginning for both the Miracle Mop and for Mangano. She ended up selling millions of Miracle Mops. And since this first success, she went on to create scores of other products, such as Rolykit, Huggable Hangers and the Piatto Bakery Box.  

 

Mangano recalled this experience in her autobiographical, ”Inventing Joy,” in 2017. “I'm just like everybody else out there. I'm a mom, I work, I have a house to clean, things to organize. We all have similar needs, and I address them.”

 

Subsequently, Mangano sold her company, Ingenious Designs, to the Home Shopping Network in 1999 for an undisclosed amount. Before Mangano sold her company, she had more than 100 patents, including one for HSN’s best-selling product of all time, Huggable Hangers. During that 25-year period for Mangano, her company was able to bring in over $150 million each year. And she is estimated to have earned about $3 billion during this timespan. 

 

For most entrepreneurs, success doesn't come easily. For most of them, success only comes after a difficult journey. Of course, it’s not really possible to show all of the difficulties on the road to success in a two-hour movie. And the movie “Joy” only gives us a taste of some of the difficulties that Mangano experienced in creating her company.

 

One thing that really stands out for me from Mangano’s success is that it is far easier to sell your product to others if you are able to put yourself in their place as a user of your product. The reason that Mangano was able to persuade people to buy her products so well was because she was a user of the products she was selling, not just a salesperson. As such, she was able to relate to customers, and they were able to relate to her. As a result, they trusted her and were willing to buy her products. Of course, she was also the inventor of her products, which helped her sell them.

 

Most products, however, are too complex for a single person to invent. Nevertheless, where possible, you should try to be a user of the products that you are trying to sell. As a user, you will better know how to explain your products to others. You will know your products’ strengths and also their weaknesses. The latter will allow you to have empathy for your customers because you are also a user. And such usage can also help you make suggestions to improve your products. And if you are able to solve practical problems related to the use of your products, your products will have an edge in the marketplace. So don’t just try to sell your products. Also, try to be a direct user of your products. But if that’s not feasible, at least try to learn as much as you can about how your customers use your products and any difficulties they encounter. Only then will you be able to sell your products with confidence. 

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原文标题：商业往事丨第87话：卖拖把翻转命运

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